I Know Who Killed Me DVD Review

A Conclusive Five Line Review

This film stars Lindsay Lohan. Usually, that's the worst feature of a film. However, in the case of this blatant Shock rip-off, that is about the only redeeming feature of this film. Utter shyte - unless you happen to enjoy perving Lindsay Lohan. She looks quite fit here.

Plot

A serial killer is on the loose and you know who it is the first time you see him. The killer captures and kills a popular girl. Or does he?

Review

This film received negative reviews all around. I must say it's not entirely without its entertaining features. Lindsay Lohan delivers quite a convincing performance as a teen brat and later as a teeny bopper who lives a life of wanton abandon. Drugs, strip clubs and underage drinking and underage sex. I wonder how much of this was acting? Very Method. Stanislavski would be proud of Lindsay.

The worst features of this film are:

• The editing. It's just sloppy. It is true that the use of colour in this film is quite engrossing, although it is not quite cut from the same cloth as Dario Argento's Susperia as some reviewers have claimed.


• The killer. The guy is a cripple and he gets beaten up by teenage girls. That's not scary. Considering that this film is essentially a serial killer suspense thriller, you can't have a boring boogie man. If you really must have an affirmative action villian, at least do it with style, like they do in Saw.

I'd love to swim against the stream and offer a dissenting opinion, but in this case I'm afraid I really can't. This film sucks. And not in a good way like Lindsay Lohan might. To be honest, I think I'd much prefer to see Lindsay in a homemade sex video ala Paris Hilton than in mainstream films. Except Lindsay can actually act. That's why she gets parole and Paris doesn't.



Lindsay Lohan. Is she really acting when she portrays a drinking drug-binging teenage brat stripper? It looks like she's hiding her tik in her breast pocket, Napoleon style.

Director

Christ Sivertson, the proud owner of quite a few Golden Raspberry Awards thanks to this film.

Cast

• Spencer Garrett


• Lindsay Lohan


• Paula Marshall


• Neil McDonough


• Julia Ormond

Rating

Return of the Living Dead DVD Review

Conclusion

Now this, is a horror movie.

Plot

Standard Zombie film fanfare but pulled off with all the class of the ten commandments of horror. A bunch of people notice a zombie outbreak and try not to die. Obviously, it's ultimately futile. Zombification is almost as lethal as altruism.

Review

I could wax lyrical about this film, but this film already shines so much from all the lyrical waxing that watching it may cause blindness. And furry palms. And God killing a kitten. Instead, I'll present you with an image that captures the essence of this film:


Barack Obama as a zombie. I didn't need to edit it much, really.

Not counting of course the death rock and eighties fake American punk on the soundtrack.

Director

Dan O'Bannon

Cast

• Clu Gulager


• James Karen


• Linnea Quigly


• Beverly Randolf


• Tarman

Rating

Rabid DVD Review

Conclusion

It's wonderful what David Cronenberg could achieve with antacid tablets, adult film actresses and enough blush to make a corpse, well, blush.

Plot

A girl (Marilyn Chambers) and her boyfriend are involved in a motorcycle accident. The girl is injured seriously enough to slip into a coma. She also needs a skin graft which turns out to cause more trouble than she had anticipated. She wakes up with a phallic underarm appendage that can drain cows, grown men and nubile girls who slip and fall into a jacuzzi of their blood. Talk about a Freudian slip. Suddenly, medical aid paying out is not her only concern.

But that's not all. After being sucked dry by Marilyn Chambers (not in the usual adult actress fun way but in the her underarm schlong attached itself to my neck and sucked my blood dry kind of way. Don't you hate it when that happens?), the victims start foaming antacid tablets at the mouth. They also become covered in blush. Lots of blush. The only logical conclusion for a film of this kind is to let nearly everyone turn into catatonic zombies who spew antacid tablet foam and try to cover everyone else in blush.

Review

When one considers the budget, this film is simply incredible. All the practice Marilyn Chambers had with breathing heavily and contorting her face while faking orgasms in pornographic films proved to be quite suitable to horror films. She makes a fine lead actress and carries the film well.

Her boyfriend spends some guy time in his garage fixing his bike while listening to some of the most porno music I've ever heard. It sounds like French disco funk and it's nearly as unsettling as the contorting faces and the antacid tablet foam.

The murder/love scenes provide a flash-forward to Cronenberg's unnerving kind of erotica he would explore in more detail with Crash. This has to be the most unnerving kind of erotica this side of Asian tentacle porn. Cronenberg must be one sick puppy.

Campy, low budget in the B-grading way and with enough fake blood and gratuitous boob shots to keep any goremeister enthralled. Not quite as epic as Dagon, not quite as classy as The Addiction and thankfully not as silly as Devil's Nightmare. One of my top ten horror films made to date.

Director

David Cronenberg

Cast

• Marilyn Chambers


• Patricia Gage


• Frank Moore


• Susan Roman


• Joe Silver

Rating

Bram Stoker's Dracula DVD Review

Rating

Conclusion

A stellar cast and a celebrated director team up with Keanu Reeves to bring this classic vampire tale to the silver screen the way Bram Stoker intended it. Well, so he intended it to be a book. As if people read anything that's not flashing at them like a bad acid trip.

Plot

The brave and fearless prince of Transylvania returns from a crusade to find his beloved deceased. Of course, the brave and fearless prince never flinched while impaling heathen scum, even if they were women and children, as long as their heads went on sticks. But matters of the heart are different, so the brave and fearless prince flinches.

He utters a string of petty blasphemies, reminiscent of Morbid Angel in their early days. This is enough to become excommunicated, which is a blessing in disguise, really. Since being excommunicated, the prince is demoted to a count, yet somehow manages to escape death and greatly increases his fortune. Moral of the story: the private sector is where the real opportunities are. You can slave away your whole life working for the government, and what do you get in return? A cubicle-sized house served by a modest motley crew of servants if you are lucky, flying lessons for your bride to be if you're not.

Being excommunicated also has other benefits, like an autonomous shadow and this thick accent which makes women swoon and commands beasts. Which, come to think of it, amounts to the same thing. The count ends up in the 19th century, which would explain why he dresses like Oscar Wilde without getting beaten to a pulp. Except if the movie played off in France, in which case you get smacked with gloves for not dressing like Oscar Wilde. Yet not beaten to a pulp, because the French are pansies.

The count devises a cunning plan to sweep Mina (Wynona Ryder) off her feet. There are only a few technicalities, namely that she's not really his Mina but the reincarnation of his Mina and currently the Mina of Keanu Reeves (does it really matter what character he plays? He's like Tom Cruize, he can only play himself with the kind of conviction that's either laudable or laughable). That, and sunlight is a burden. Oh, and he has to sleep in a coffin. On a bedding from a garden of his homeland. That will certainly get the neighbours talking, so the cunning plan involves seducing Mina's friend and keeping Mina sedated on vast quantities of absinthe. Hey, if the neighbours are going to talk anyway, you might as well make them talk a great deal.


Sadie Frost, who dresses like Robert Smith in this film. Everyone wants to bonk her, once they find out she's not really Robert Smith. Can't say I blame them.

Nothing says 'I love you' quite like sleeping with her best friend, keeping her intoxicated and dragging her off to the wildest parts of Europe where nobody can reach you without a coach driven by a ghoul, so naturally the plan works. Except that there are other suitors who want to sleep with Mina's best friend, keep Mina intoxicated and drag her off to other wild parts of Europe. Parts that could be reached more easily by crossing a channel, for instance. Except for France.

Review

This film has some really impressive Victorian costumes. It is a period piece, but the designers managed to concoct a modern feel despite the hair pieces and the rusty medical equipment. There are also some great latex props, with CGI reserved for what it does best.

The DVD features a host of treats, from the theatrical trailer to a documentary on Dracula to a making of. The making of reveals just how brilliantly Francis Ford Coppola directed the cast. Actors were allowed to give their input after the entire cast sat reading the source, namely Bram Stoker's Dracula. This often leads to complications, as actors are often attention hungry and they spoil the craft with self-indulgence. Coppola manages to hold tight reins, while not making it appear so to the actors. This clever tactic does not stifle the creativity of the actors, while simultaneously allowing Coppola to orchestrate the entire affair to his liking. Truly one of my favourite films, especially thanks to the great directing and the sheer effort that went into preserving detail.

The unsettling score by Wojciech Kilar stands by itself as a horror film for the blind. He also did an excellent score for The Ninth Gate. Brooding, atmospheric and more intoxicating than that punch you virtually can't remember. At least that's your excuse.

Director

Francis Ford Coppola.

Cast

Sadie Frost, Richard E. Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder.

The Brain That Wouldn't Die DVD Review

Rating

Conclusion

A horror film among horror films. It features everything a horror film needs to be great: from the paranoid and panicking violins to the sans-serif fonts. It even features buckets of blood, blonde strippers, brunette strippers, animated corpses and a few gratuitous boob shots. Well, as gratuitous as they came in the sixties. It even features suitable metaphors which provide social critique of the "chains we can believe in" society. The film is in black and white - like most of life, if you just do your homework and check your premises properly.

Plot

• Jan Compton (Virginia Leith, who makes a delectable corpse) is decapitated in a car accident. Her husband to be, surgeon Bill Cortner (Jason Evers) was playing his Decapitated albums too loud and didn't pay attention to the road.


• Dr Cortner is a mad scientist ala Lady Frankenstein who manages to keep Jan's head alive. I promise, no more Jan gave head in the car jokes.


• Jan (or Jan in the pan, as she is affectionately known by fans of this film) goes through an existential crisis. I mean the poor girl thought she was going shopping and here she ends up without a body. I'm sure living without breasts she could cope with, but no nails to manicure? No wonder she starts hating Dr Cortner.


• Dr Cortner decides to look for the body of the girl of his dreams for the girl of his dreams in the cat house. I'm sure it must've been a real catharsis for the poor guy, deciding to buy a body when he needed a body for Jan in the pan's sparkling personality. Besides, how is Jan in the pan going to stop him from having a night out with the boys? Well, Jan has her mysterious waves. Make that mysterious ways.

Review

It is alarming how, for its time, this film capitalised on the fears of the general public for the medical profession. Remember that this film was produced before the first heart transplant was even performed, yet it deals with swapping bodies - or swapping heads, depending on which way you look at it. I guess your perspective depends on whose head it is.

Regardless, with the expected technological singularity, there are a few groups who are beginning to ponder the impact of such a radical change on our concepts of what it means to be human. They fall under the blanket term transhumanists. One of the transhumanist movements is the Extropy movement. Jan in the pan would do well to pay mind to some of their ideas.

The principles of Extropy

• Perpetual Progress: seeking more intelligence, more efficiency, more wisdom, more than being content with a shoddy pad, a big screen TV and free basic health care. Growth in healthy directions as opposed to the decline of civilisation from nations paranoid of communism into nations paranoid of capitalism.


• Self-Transformation: improving oneself, through technology if necessary. Being experimental and proactive in your evolution as a person.


• Practical Optimism: sticking to rational approaches means you can be optimistic about the results.


• Intelligent Technology: because ultimately the industrial revolution was about improving life. To transcend our reliance on nature is divine and technology enables us to do so. Intelligent technology more so. Imagine never having a car accident because cars are intelligent enough to drive you home safely.


• Open Society: meaning supporting social orders which facilitate freedom. This means deregulation, decentralisation of power and free information flow. Hackers like Gary McKinnon will no longer be deported to stand trial in foreign countries for taking his constitutional right of access to information seriously.


• Self-Direction: meaning you determine your own happiness and you do what makes you happy without being coerced into any dubious overseas wars.


• Rational Thinking: meaning you approach any ism with the necessary questions, an ability to work with probabilities and that you focus on innovation of new ideas instead of on the implementation of old dogma.

Of course, this all seems like ponies and rainbows, and in fact it is. I do think for Jan's sake, she should have considered these options before buying into the ideology that she is the ultimate horror. Everyone agrees with Bobby from pointlessbanter that Glitter is the ultimate horror. However, I'm also thankful that Jan did not follow the road less travelled to this fountain of knowledge, because that would make a far more boring film.

One of my favourite horror films of all time and fortunately also one you can download free of charge! Yes, it is legal.

Director
Joseph Green

Cast
Bruce Brighton, Jason Evers, Virginia Leith, Bonnie Sharie, Paula Maurice

Top 10 Horror Films Made to Date

The formidable Vault of Horror requested a top 10 Horror film list from some goremeisters of the blogosphere. While I'm straight and homophobically so, Brian Solomon's smooth tenor voice eventually won me over so I present to you the Top 10 Horror Films Made to Date as determined by the caprice of the Necro Files.

By the way, the title does not refer to films you can actually date, although luring an unsuspecting member of the opposite sex to your lair to privately view one of these celluloid autopsies might help in your quest to sift the wheat from the Children of the Corn, as it were.

My Top 10 Horror Films Made to Date

1. The Addiction


2. Brain That Wouldn't Die


3. Dagon


4. Bram Stoker's Dracula


5. Devil's Nightmare


6. House on Haunted Hill


7. Manhunter


8. Plague of the Zombies


9. Rabid


10. Sleepless

I do realise that I skipped on a few stalwarts of the genre like the great Alfred Hitchcock and the bitterly satirical George A Romano, but you can find those on just about any horror list. Here follows a short description of my reasons for choosing each film:

The Addiction

Artsy fartsy director Abel Ferrara brings this black and white masterpiece to life. Whether you put stock in its allegorical references to drug addiction or not, this is a pleasure to watch. It's much deeper than an ingrown toenail, yet about twice as gruesome. One of my favourite films, of any genre.

Brain That Wouldn't Die

One of those classics that just gets better every time I watch it. Picture a movie about giving head. No, not in that way, I mean really giving head. Exit bowel movements and sensation of your lower limbs. Enter existential crisis. Mayhem ensues.

Dagon

A patchwork of Lovecraft tales strung together with the sinews of a race of uncanny fish people. Lofty literary pretensions aside, it features a few gratuitous boob shots and buckets of blood.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

For a change, they did it by the book. With by the book I mean they did in fact base it on Bram Stoker's Dracula. This is not Bram Stoker's Dracula cut from the same cloth as Stephen King's Children of the Corn. Nay, nay, this is Dracula more or less as envisaged by Bram Stoker, complete with Hungarian expletives and the whores of Satan.

Devil's Nightmare

This delightful film tells the tale of a group of tourists who get stuck in a castle. A succubus visits the castle and manages to seduce all of them. Each tourist represents one of the seven deadly sins. Fucking tourists. They have no moral fibre.

House on Haunted Hill

No horror list would be complete without at least one Vincent Price film. I chose this one, but Shock or The Last Man on Earth would also suffice.

Manhunter

I have a morbid fascination with this film. It must be the shocking pastels of the synthetic materials they wore in the eighties. I also enjoy the fact that the film focuses on the eerie Tooth Fairy instead of on the eerie Hannibal Lecter.

Plague of the Zombies

No horror list would be complete without at least one Hammer film. Of course, the same goes for at least one Dracula film and at least one wolf man film. This is Hammer's only Zombie film, and one of the most influential Zombie films from the Voodoo inspired side of the genre. Still some of the hottest corpses I've seen. I can scarce believe that the actresses are English.

Rabid

David Cronenberg cut his teeth on low budget happy accidents like this one. Featuring the delectable Marilyn Chambers, this film is gorno with suitable metaphor before there even was gorno devoid of metaphor.

Marilyn Chambers is a topless and bottomless (depending on the weather, I guess) waitress who turned into an adult film star. After that, she nearly broke into the mainstream by landing roles such as this one. Unfortunately, her past as an adult film star made film producers nervous and she was kept out of big mainstream films. It is unfortunate, because she's a fine scream queen and she does an amazing job in this film.

Sleepless

A brilliant addition to the giallo genre long after it had been declared dead and buried. You simply can't touch Dario Argento when it comes to stylish, sterile and meticulously planned murder scenes. While I am a huge fan of both Susperia and Deep Red, this film has all the trademarks of a resurrection. Unfortunately, the resurrection didn't go anywhere and giallo has been declared dead more times than Rasputin.

That's my current top 10 list. Of course I neglected to add a wolf man. If I did, I would've included Curse of the Devil. I also haven't included any of the excellent Korean horrors of recent years because I haven't delved into them yet. Comments, queries, black mail, lacy thongs and beer money are all welcome!

Curse of the Devil (1973) Review

Conclusion

A legendary film with a cult following, also known as El Retorno de Walpurgis or 'the Return of the Walpurgis'. You can't really go wrong when your blood looks like molten crayons and your werewolf costume looks like one of the Berenstain Bears.

Actually, you can go very, very wrong when your werewolf costume looks that Semitic. Not that there is anything wrong with looking Semitic, just that it doesn't exactly conjure up images of a savage half man, half beast creature. I'm talking Ashkenazi Jews here.




Fair is foul and foul is fair. May every Daninsky be covered with hair.

This movie is entertaining because the translation leaves much to be desired and the blood looks like molten crayons and the werewolf costume looks like the Berenstain Bears. Pyjamas and all.

Plot

Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) accidentally kills a werewolf, thereby fulfilling an ancient prophecy. This prophecy holds that one of the Daninsky family would accidentally kill one of the Bathory family. My karma ran over your dogma who happens to be a werewolf.

The murder sets a curse that the Bathory family placed upon the Daninsky family in motion. The Daninsky curse in general falls onto Waldemar Daninsky in particular. The Bathory family were burnt at the stake by the Daninsky family on Walpurgis night, and from there the return of the Walpurgis in the title.



Exhibit A: Spot the difference between the Berenstain Bears and Waldemar Daninsky (this is Waldemar Daninsky).



Exhibit B: Spot the difference between the Berenstain Bears and Waldemar Daninsky (this is the Berenstain Bears). Taken from Pbase.com

During the film, Waldemar adds nearly as many notches to his bedpost as the average James Bond does, but with far more fleas.

Review

• Paul Naschy holds the record for playing the Berenstain Bear, er I mean wolf man the most number of times.


• In the first half hour, you have duelling knights, a black mass, a public execution by hanging, an occult curse by one Bathory and a burning at the stake. Somehow, this film does not manage to steer clear of the cheese after that either.


• In all fairness, this film is not bad at all. The acting and the set design are both great, and the plot gives a nod to ancient European superstitions. It is made with much passion, but it did not age that well and it is unintentionally hilarious at points.


• At the time, Paul Naschy had problems with the authorities regarding the religious, sexual and violent content of his wolf man films. This is hard to believe - almost as hard as believing that the actors managed to keep straight faces through all the molten crayon blood. The times they are a changing indeed.

There is however one aspect of Curse of the Devil that still applies to our times. This is of course the mass hysteria of the pitchfork wielding peasants. Despite some authors like James Surowiecki arguing that crowd wisdom is superior to individual wisdom, it is clear that as much as crowd participation compounds success, it also compounds dismal failure. In his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, Surowiecki identifies four elements required for a wise crowd:

Four Elements Required for a Wise Crowd

• Diversity of opinion, whereby each person should be privy to his own viewpoint, no matter how eccentric.


• Independence, which determines that each individual is allowed to formulate his own opinion without fear of favour or prejudice or death threats.


• Decentralisation, making provision for localised and/or specialised knowledge, like say the knowledge inherent in the separation of powers principle.


• Aggregation, which is a mechanism for orchestrating the various judgements into a cohesive decision. An example of such a mechanism is Dotmocracy.

It is clear that the pitchfork wielding peasants were not allowed a diversity of opinion, I mean either Wandinsky is the wolf man and deserves to be killed or... no, that's the only option really. They were thus not free to disagree with the mob leader either. Similarly, they did not allow for localised or specialised knowledge, since the investigator sent by the authorities was ultimately not allowed to give his input. Even after he allowed them to pursue their own ways of dealing with Wandinsky, they killed the investigator. There is also a noted absence of aggregation. The mob merely goes from one mob leader to the next, ironically much like a pack of wild dogs choosing its leader by virtue of him being the strongest. As usual, truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense, as the famous quote goes.



Exhibit C: Spot the difference between a real mob and a fictitious mob (this is a fictitious mob exhibiting compound failure).



Exhibit D: Spot the difference between a real mob and a fictitious mob (this is a real mob exhibiting compound failure).

Note the similarities between the real mob and the fictitious mob. The one has made up its mind about who is guilty, who is innocent and no matter what the reality is, they already decided to kill those who oppose them. On the other hand, we have the pitchfork wielding peasants who run after Wandinsky in the Curse of the Devil.

For those outside South Africa who might still be in the dark, try this erudite legal opinion on the ANCYL leader Mamela's threat to kill those who oppose Jacob Zuma.

Director

Carlos Aured.

Cast

Fabiola Falcón, Anna Farra, Jacinto Molina, aka Paul Naschy, Inés Morales, Martiza Olivares.

Rating

Doppelganger (1993) Review

Conclusion

This high budget lameness resembles a pretty cool metamorphosis scene with big latex heads, a few buckets of blood and lots of ooze with a half-baked plot added as an afterthought. The doppelganger idea is charming and could be seen as a metaphor for the main character's struggle to come to terms with her higher circuits of consciousness, scared to unleash a monster as it were. Or maybe not, but that's my version and I'm sticking to it.

Plot

A girl (Drew Barrymore) is stalked by her doppelganger in this obvious allusion to her shady drug habits and the resulting explorations of Dr Timothy Leary's 8-circuit model of consciousness. Well, not really. Most of the film is just plodding and dull so I added my own subtext.

Review

"To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour." - William Blake

No, William Blake was not on acid. At least not the same acid that Dr Hoffman synthesised. His auguries of innocence do however seem to describe the same kind of phantoms summoned by Dr Timothy Leary with the auguries of lysergide.

Dr Leary did serious psychology work for a while. His interpersonal circumplex model is still used to evaluate and differentiate between personality disorders. After a colleague introduced Leary to psilocybin mushrooms, his area of expertise changed drastically. It is during this period of intense experimentation with psychedelics that Dr Leary developed his seven levels of consciousness model, which he dubbed 'the Seven Tongues of God' (Nevermore fans rejoice!). This model was later improved by Dr Leary and Robert Anton Wilson, after ingesting more drugs in greater quantities. It developed into the 8-circuit model of consciousness.



Dr Timothy Leary, doppelganger for delinquency.

Dr Leary's 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness

According to Dr Leary, the old left brain/right brain consciousness model is more than just the smart maths side versus the dumb arty side. The left side represents our primal modes, needed for our survival, while the right side represents our more divine levels of consciousness, needed for evolution. While it is crucial to awaken the levels of consciousness of the left side in order to survive, it is not necessary to develop the levels of consciousness of the right side of your brain, unless of course you want to have some fun.

The Seven Tongues of God

These refer to the seven basic spiritual questions.

• The Ultimate Power Question: What is the basic energy of the universe?


• The Life Question: What is life?


• The Human Being Question: Who is man?


• The Awareness Question: How does man know?


• The Ego Question: Who am I?


• The Emotional Question: What should I feel about it?


• The Ultimate Escape Question: How do I get out of here?

Robert Anton Wilson added an eighth tongue – What if there are others out there? This might have severe theological ramifications, because in order to accommodate 8 tongues it means we'd have to picture god as Medusa. Unless of course your god is Cthulhu, in which case there are more than enough allegorical tentacles to go around. But wait, there is more!



Medusa. Gorgon. God?

The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness

Dr Leary assigned each level of consciousness to each of the basic spiritual questions. He further claimed that each level could be achieved with the appropriate contraband.

• The Bio-survival Circuit differentiates between danger and safety. Infants on this level crawl forwards or backwards. It is stimulated by drugs which offer pain relief (opiates like codeine or morphine).


• The Emotional Circuit is concerned with emotion. This mode of consciousness differentiates between submissive and dominant. Infants at this level become aware of up and down. Alcohol stimulates dominant and submissive thinking.


• The Symbolic Circuit deals with logic and abstract thought. It is concerned with dexterity and handling artefacts. At this level, infants become aware of left and right. Stimulants like caffeine and cocaine stimulate this mode of thinking.


• The Domestic Circuit offers tribal awareness. Leary never associated a drug with it, but others have suggested endorphins. This means chocolate!


• The Neurosomatic Circuit is where things get more interesting. The previous modes of consciousness are all affiliated with orientation within an Euclidean geometrical system. The neurosomatic circuit is concerned with orientation outside of fixed points, such as when one floats in water or when one free falls. Leary postulated that we need this kind of consciousness for when we walk in space someday. Marijuana is used to disorient your perceptions of Euclidean space-time.


• The Neuroelectric Circuit is when the mind becomes aware of its personal consciousness. Leary suggests that telepathy occurs at this level. Psilocybin and peyote are used to activate this circuit.


• The Neurogenetic Circuit allows the mind to become aware of the group mind of its species, or awareness of its collective consciousness. LSD is used to activate this circuit.


• The Psycho-atomic Circuit is when the mind becomes aware of super intelligence, or god. Cthulhu is in the ketamine.

What about Doppelganger?

Just like contraband serves as a shortcut to various circuits of consciousness, I will give you a shortcut to the worthy scenes in this film. When watching this movie, skip to the following highlights and cut approximately 50 minutes of dullness from your life:

• the opening, which has a sex scene and a murder back to back


• Drew Barrymore in the shower, with bloodshed on her boobies


• any scene with Leslie Hope, as her character is the only one worth watching. One of her scenes involves Americans pronouncing doppelganger. Hilarious!


• scenes featuring Drew Barrymore with both a pair of shades and a large knife. Note: both accessories, because when she has only one of them nothing happens


• the transformation scene. Don't worry, you'll know

Director

Avi Nesher

Cast

• Drew Barrymore


• Peter Dobson


• Leslie Hope


• George Maharis


• George Newbern

Rating

When skipping to the suggested cool scenes:

When watching the entire film:

A Field Guide to Zombies

Zombies: hordes of the living dead. Since their origins in Haitian folklore, the phenomenon has taken on a life (or death?) of its own. While early zombie films like White Zombie were true to the Voodoo formula, zombies achieved widespread popularity as a metaphor for herd behaviour.


Night of the Living Dead, the film that launched the zombie craze.

This is exactly how the legendary George A. Romero orchestrated it with his Night of the Living Dead. Lately, zombie films have become virtually devoid of metaphor – a characteristic lamented by Romero. These films merely postulate a zombie apocalypse at some point in the future, without any social commentary. Zombie films have become nothing but mindless entertainment, albeit with an awful lot of brains.

I Walked With A Zombie

The word zombie has its roots in various languages. The most likely origin is the Kongo word nzambi, meaning the spirit of a dead person. Another candidate is zonbi, a word of Bantu origin, which means a person brought back from the dead without its own free will.

Although zombies were originally the result of Voodoo, most Hollywood films downplay this aspect and highlight a chemical cause of zombies instead.

The Zombie Stomp

In Voodoo, a bokor (Voodoo sorcerer) may revive a dead person, or zombi. This zombi is then a slave to the bokor. Although this might sound too good to be true, bokor actually do this with tetrodoxin, a powerful neurotoxin. Bokor traditionally find tetrodoxin in pufferfish.


Datura, a plant used to maintain the catatonic zombie state. Don't try this at home, kids!

Bokor create zombies with two powders. The first, coup de poudre, consisting mostly of tetrodoxin, creates a near death state in a victim. The second powder contains mainly dissociative drugs which create the catatonic zombie state. Datura is an example of a plant containing these dissociative chemicals (atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine).

Zombie In My Veins

Perhaps due to the religious overtones of Voodoo, Hollywood decided to avoid any occult connotations with zombies. While some early zombie films like Plague of the Zombies still used this traditional Voodoo link, biochemical zombies soon upstaged the occult zombies.

With biochemical zombies, the government is usually somehow responsible for the outbreak. A biochemical zombie plague inevitably results in zombie apocalypse, or at least the impending doom of such an apocalypse. Films of this nature include Return of the Living Dead 3 and 28 Days Later.

Lost Zombies: A Community Generated Zombie Documentary

This a really interesting zombie project. Community generated projects seem to be the future of film.

Find more videos like this on Lost Zombies


Our goal at Lost Zombies is to gather definitive proof that zombies are real and to compile that proof into a feature length documentary film. We are asking the general public to assist us by submitting any proof of zombies they may have. We believe as a community we can educate the world’s population of the reality of zombies and the potential, if not imminent, zombie apocalypse.

Suggested Links

• Internet dating of the undead. Features zombie Eileen, a woman after my own heart. And after my own brains too.


• How stuff works page on zombies. It goes into a fair amount of detail.


• Lost Zombies, a community generated zombie project.


• Wikipedia page on datura, the plant responsible for producring a zombie state.


• Wikipedia page on Doctor Wade Davis. Dr Davis is a noted anthropologist who studied zombification in Haiti.

Giallo: Grindhouse films with Italian style

Giallo is the Italian word for yellow. As a film genre, it represents the Italian version of American grindhouse films. While American grindhouse mainly enjoys expression by means of exploitation films, the Italians managed to entwine a literary genre too, albeit inspired by American pulp fiction.

From the late 1920s, the Monadori publishing house specialised in horror and crime pulp fiction. This house published cheap suspense novels in response to the rising popularity of American whodunits (who done it? or who did it?). In fact, the first giallo novels were translations of their popular Anglophone counterparts.

These giallo novels appeared with – you guessed it – characteristically yellow covers. Since then, the term giallo became synonymous with intrigue and suspense in Italy.




Besides the popularity of their Anglophone counterpats, giallo novels were inspired by the legacy of the Grand Guignol theatre in Paris. This theatre could best be described as the theatre of the macabre. Since closing its doors in 1962, the term Grand Guignol is often used to describe amoral horror entertainment. Sweeny Todd is a shameless tribute to Grand Guignol theatre, and doubly amoral due to Johnny Depp's spooky singing.

Giallo in Film

Characteristics of Giallo in film include:

• buckets of blood


• stylish camera work


• eerie music


• gratuitous boob shots


• staged drama in the vein of Opera

Since these correlate closely with my 10 Commandments of Horror, I am hooked on giallo. In fact, I should probably include eerie music and operatic tragedy as the 11th and 12th commandments of horror.

Giallo sets itself apart from the American grindhouse formula of babes and badasses because it is mostly driven by a whodunit plot. While giallo is not prepared to be upstaged by means of boob shots or buckets of blood, it does have something more compelling than just mere lustful gore.



Some giallo directors include Dario Argento, Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci. Mario Bava's film The Girl Who Knew Too Much is regarded as the first popular giallo film. Note the obvious reference to Alfred Hitchcock. Lucio Fulci is more renowned for his inventive zombie films, but he has worked in the giallo genre with films like The House By The Cemetery. Last but not least, Dario Argento.

Dario Argento, the Goremeister of Giallo

The Italian Hitchcock, Dario Argento, is the most famous example of giallo cinema. As a film genre, giallo enjoys influence from:

• fantasy


• crime fiction


• horror fiction


• eroticism

With films like Suspiria, Argento manages to blend all of the above in a masterly way. Argento likes to reinvent himself, but he is at his best when he does crime fiction. Examples of his genius at work are Sleepless and Deep Red (also known as The Hatchet Murders).



For eerie music, Argento often teams up with Enno Moriccone and progressive rock band Goblin. Deep Red in particular stands along with Vampyros Lesbos as exploitation films which are often revered for their brilliant soundtracks.

Suggested links

• Grand Guignol tribute site, with sick posters.


• Kinoeye special report on giallo films - brilliant essay.


• Vault of Horror reports on Dario Argento's first English film in 15 years.

Plague of the Zombies (1966) Review

Conclusion

A highly influential zombie film that still regards the White Zombie inspired traditional link between Voodoo and the undead with a modicum of respect. There are no toxic substances or medical explanations for zombies here, only Voodoo tainted blood.

A British made film from the prestigious Hammer collection. Highly recommended for horror buffs, especially because it is the only Hammer zombie film, but it would probably put fans of films paced like The Matrix to sleep. An unsettling sleep, but sleep nonetheless.

Plot synopsis

Sir James Forbes is a highly respected doctor. He is summoned to a remote Cornish village by one of his former students, doctor Peter Tompson, to help deal with a mysterious disease. The illness is killing off villagers, but since the locals are superstitious, the doctor had been unable to perform any kind of autopsy.

Sylvia, the daughter of Sir Forbes, accompanies her father on his journey to the countryside to reinforce her feeling of silver spoon superiority over the simpletons in the country. She is an English bird, and due to her characteristically pale skin it is hard to tell whether she is a zombie or not.

Sir James Forbes digs up a grave of a recently deceased villager, only to discover that the grave is empty. Only to be discovered by constable Swift, digging up a grave, looking like a very demented thrill seeker with his panting breath, his rolled up sleeves and his sweaty palms. Somehow, Sir Forbes manages to convince the constable not to charge him for grave robbing, and also to aid him in his investigation.

The investigation soon turns more exciting when more people are put to their graves, more empty graves are unearthed and more dead people start walking the earth.

A secretive local links all the risen dead in seemingly innocuous ways. The squire, Clive Hamilton, spent some time in Haiti and some Voodoo seemed to have followed him home.

Review

It is estimated that Plague of the Zombies offers social critique of the practices of slavery and colonialism. I did not really notice any such critique. What I did notice instead was that the male hierarchy in the film is distinctly represented by their facial hair.

• Sir James Forbes is obviously the older alpha male who enjoys the highest regard. He has a hirsute appendage of the upper lip with graspable extremities, in other words a handlebar moustache.


• Squire Clive Hamilton is the antagonist, who is a candidate for the next alpha male. He sports a modest approach to a mutton chop. This suggests that he is well groomed, however the fact that sporadic mutton chop remains on his cheeks suggest he has a wilder nature and that he is hiding something.


• Doctor Tompson is a spineless nancy boy who is 19th century Emo or Buddhist, or perhaps both. He has no facial hair whatsoever, but he does sport a modest approach to the one eye fringe.

Jacqueline Pearce portrays the role of doctor Tompson's wife. She is promptly transformed into a chicita del morte, and along with Return of the Living Dead 3's Mindy Clarke, she is a certified C.I.L.F.


That's a corpse I'd like to find a good home for.

The only bone of contention I have with this film is the rather unimaginative ending. It just ends. There is no interesting twist in the plot, even though the audience is set up exactly for a marvellous twist in the plot. Clearly, this film came out before the 10 commandments of horror were conceived.

Director

John Gilling

Cast

John Carson, Diane Clare, Adré Morell, Jacqueline Pearce, Brook Williams.

Rating

Cherish Your Life: Saw (2004) Review

Conclusion
A grizzly tale, but not a gory one in the horror-porn torture porn gorno tradition of Hostel. Saw is strictly driven by suspense and intricate plot. Highly entertaining and with more twists in the plot than in a koeksister. A beacon of original light shining through the darkness of politically correct angsty teen creature features.




One of Tannie Marie's koeksisters. Tannie Marie ships koeksisters all over America, bringing a touch of Boere culture to the new world.

Plot
Two men find themselves in a locked bathroom, while on videotape. No, it's not George Michael and a member of the Village People. It is Dr Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and photographer Adam Faulkner (Leigh Whannell). They find a corpse between them, which holds a tape recorder and a gun. Talk about a silver lining. They each find a cassette in their pockets, with their names on it. The cassettes instruct Dr Gordon to kill Adam within a given time frame.

Of course doctors usually save lives, with the notable exception of the South African minister of health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who rather saves witch doctors and their superstitions. Dr Gordon is persuaded to join the dark side of Dr Tshabalala-Msimang and Dr Hannibal Lecter when he finds out that his family is kept hostage by an evil man.

Review

• For some reason, Saw is grouped with Hostel and Devil's Rejects in the torture porn or gorno (gore + porno) genre. This genre is described as being devoid of suitable metaphor for its explicit scenes of nudity and violence. Personally, I found Saw to have many suitable metaphors and the version I have on DVD is bloody but not gory. Not that I mind blood and guts for the sake of blood and guts, but just to prove the point, Saw features no nudity that I can recall.


• Since it is claimed that the Jigsaw Killer never actually kills anyone himself, the film is highly original. The exception is photographer Adam Faulkner, but I won't give away anything.


• Saw has an excellent plot. I pride myself in identifying the killers in this sort of film early on. Of course, I was right, but only half right. I love being outsmarted.


• The Jigsaw Killer, so named because he leaves the imprint of a jigsaw puzzle piece on his victims, is hailed as the new Freddy Krueger. This antagonist of the Saw series is a person with a terminal illness who wishes to teach his victims the value of their lives by placing them in virtually inescapable situations. They could learn the same valuable lesson by waiting in line at customs instead. The irony here is the victims have a choice between their lives or the lives of others, whereas the Jigsaw Killer has no choice.


• This film attempts to answer the question of what one would do when one is faced with the options of acting civil for the greater good, or acting in your own best interest at the peril of strangers in a life or death situation. For this reason, the Wikipedia article on the Jigsaw Killer identifies certain Darwinian, Nietzschean and Deleuzian traits in the methods of the Jigsaw Killer.


• In contrast with other excellent serial killer films like Manhunter, the focus here is on the psychological ordeal of the victims instead of on the complications of the personality of the killer. This is not a case of finding a new mask and a new weapon for a generic mass murderer and ticking his victims off one by one. The character of the Jigsaw Killer is carefully crafted, but the viewer is not forced to be a fanboy with trading cards. Excellent film!

Director
James Wan

Cast

• Cary Elwes


• Michael Emerson


• Danny Glover


• Monica Potter


• Leigh Whannell

Rating

Internet Dating of the Undead

Zombie Elaine

Hmmmmm brains.

Before

After

Her Narratives

Why should you get to know Zombie Elaine?
Like brains. Like brains lot.

She describes her ideal match thus:
Man with brains. Lot of brains!

Maybe this is not quite what Internet Dating Tips had in mind for their dating site photo editing competition. Next time I'd read the specs.

Dagon (2001) Review

Conclusion
A noble effort by Miskatonic University graduates. It features buckets of blood and everybody's favourite Cephalopoda: Cthulhu! The Great Old One even gets a sacrifice or two.

This film is clearly low budget, but whether that is a weakness or a strength depends on your perception. I feel necessity breeds invention. And sometimes a race of Merpeople.

Plot
Barbara and Paul are enjoying a cruise when their ship suddenly becomes shipwrecked. That's what you get for letting an IT professional navigate without google earth. They seek help in a nearby Spanish harbour. At first, the inhabitants seem friendly, but the tide soon turns.

The inhabitants are a tad more than eccentric. In fact, they are just plain creepy:

• they have no electricity. No, this is not a South African port, but a fictional Spanish town called Imboca


• there is a strange symbol everywhere


• there are virtually no opposable thumbs in Imboca


• no really, I am not kidding. There are virtually no opposable thumbs in Imboca

It turns out that Barbara was kidnapped instead of being helped. To what end? Well, that's where Cthulhu comes in.

Inhabitants of Imboca faithfully answer to the call of Cthulhu. If you aren't chanting "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu ftaghn!" by now, you might not enjoy this movie.

Review

• Dagon is loosely based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. In particular, the tales Dagon and The Shadow Over Innsmouth were used: Dagon for the name, and the latter for the plot. The infamous author is long since "dead but dreaming", which means you can find the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft for download, free.


• There is some CGI, but it is not intrusive. More importantly, it is not tacky. You won't find actors playing imaginary dodge ball in front of a blue screen. It must be one of the few recorded incidents of tastefully used CGI.


• There are several latex heads. Even latex hands. Expect even anatomically non-descript latex, but as far as I could tell there were no severed latex heads.


• Expect even some fine breast implants on display.


• A man features as the protagonist and a woman as an antagonist, or half a woman as an antagonist. Nevertheless, for the most part, Dagon abides by the 10 Commandments of Horror.


• Produced by Brian Yuzna, who also directed Faust: Love Of the Damned. He is one of my favourite producers, because if you see his name on a credit roll, it means buckets of blood. Dagon is no exception. Let's just say your skin will crawl.


• Dagon is Spanish actor Francisco Rabal's last film. The dynamic between him and Ezra Godden is great to watch, especially in the dialogue right before Rabal's character gets... no wait, that would be telling. Watch it!


• It could always do with more ooze.


• It could always do with more fine breast implants.

Dagon also teaches us morality. It suggests a perplexing philosophy, sometimes difficult to grasp, but for the layman it could be summarised in a few words:

What Would Cthulhu Do?

Director
Stuart Gordon

Cast
Ezra Godden
Macarena Gómez
Raquel Meroño
Jorge Luis Pérez
Francisco Rabal

Rating

Tearing your soul apart: Hellraiser (1987) review

Plot
Frank Cotton is a mysterious man who buys a mysterious box from an equally mysterious Asian hawker. What is even more mysterious is that the Asian hawker is peddling in Morocco. Puzzled by the mysteries of the demographic irregularities, but seemingly undeterred by the mysteries of the mysterious box, Frank opens it with the aid of garden variety sputtering candles and late night deja-voodoo. A breed of hell-spawn demons called cenobites appear. They offer boundless sensual experience to Frank. Without even buying him a drink. Frank is not so mysteriously drawn to sadomasochism. Given the option of having a breed of demons torture his body and soul, or joining the Church of Scientology, a "dangerous cult", Frank wisely chooses to try his luck with the demons instead.

Visit Operation Clambake!
Frank likes a little S&M kink amongst consenting adults, but he realises true exploitation when he sees it. After meeting the cenobites, Frank mysteriously disappears from his home - body, soul, mysterious box, cenobites and all. Authorities suspect Scientology has something to do with it. All the circumstantial evidence points to extra-terrestrial beings with a lust for life and an appetite for destruction, not to mention the resemblance between Xenu-bite and cenobite. It won't be the first time either. Nevertheless, Frank's brother Larry follows in his footsteps, in more ways than one. Larry soon moves into Frank's dilapidated house along with Frank's widowed wife. Seems like one could take nepotism too far after all.



But there is a screw loose. There are also nails loose, sticking out of the walls in Frank's house. Loose nails could get handy when there isn't another loose screw around with an S&M infatuation. Must be for when Frank gets lonely. While moving in, Larry cuts his hand on one of the nails, which proves to be the final nail in his coffin. Some of his blood is spilt on the floor. This mysteriously awakens the remains of Frank. Frank is such a rude character, he doesn't even wait for the sequel to make a comeback. He mysteriously escapes the cenobites, who spend the rest of the film terrorising Frank's terrifying step daughter for information instead of following the stench of rotting flesh to Frank's hideout. Gaining the upper hand over your opponent with emotional blackmail instead of sleuth tactics certainly compensates for its lack of efficiency with sheer style. The cenobites live up to their reputation for tearing souls apart, offering boundless sensual experience, evading all manners of taxation and traumatising several survivors. That's the cenobites. Not the Scientologists.

Review

• This film is seriously lacking in the technical department. It is Barker's first attempt at directing a feature film, and it shows. The shots are composed haphazardly, so unethically unaesthetic that it doesn't look like they were composed at all. There are some clever shots which work very well, making it clear that Barker was merely not cognisant of composition protocol.


• This is not to say the film fails to create atmosphere. On the contrary, mostly due to the innate storytelling genius of Barker and the music of Christopher Young, the film does manage to create binding tension. Not only for Frank. Barker manages to let the story unfold, raising all the right questions, leaving all the right questions unanswered. It does get a little muddled towards the end, mostly because the questions which are answered offer no real resolution. At least the ending itself is rather splendid.


• Christoper Young was commissioned to write the score after Barker first tried to work with an Industrial soundtrack by fellow Brits Coil. Barker found the music they made short of listenable - "bowl churning", just like good Industrial should be, in fact. Young provides his usual model of excellence. His musical scores are like motion pictures on their own. The music of Christopher Young creates a black hole, sucking the viewer into another dimension.


• You will love this film if you adore latex props in lieu of CGI, and can look past the glaring shortcomings of the shots. It obeys nearly all the commandments of horror, especially with regards to the characters. Some of Frank's blood doesn't look realistic at all. It looks more like paint. Frank's metamorphosis is done very well, but it could always do with more ooze, and naturally more buckets of blood!

Conclusion
A mildly entertaining, classy horror with Barker redeeming himself from the lacking film technique thanks to the brilliant storytelling. The performances of the largely unknown cast are also noteworthy. For fans of dark fantasy and true special effects craftsmanship.

Director
Clive Barker

Cast
Doug Bradley
Clare Higgins
Ashley Laurence
Andrew Robinson
Oliver Smith

Rating